Page 72 of He's The Reason Why

“Shame. You missed out.” She started to stack the papers on the table.

Alarm shot through him. “Hey, stop that. You’re messing with my filing system.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “This isn’t a system. It looks like the fairgrounds after the carnival pulled out.”

“I need this stuff exactly where I put it.”

“Okay, okay.” Piper held her hands up in surrender. “I’ll stop destroying your obviously carefully situated piles of paper.”

Piper looked around. “Where is anyone supposed to sit in here?”

“Here.” He dumped the books out of the chair in the corner and helped her shift it to the table.

“Out of curiosity, why didn’t you ever go to one of our concerts? Don’t like pop music?”

“I hate crowds,” he admitted. “But now that I know you I wish I’d made the effort. Think The Bellamy Sisters will ever get back together? Do a reunion tour?”

She sat back in the chair and hugged her knees to her chest. “A few weeks ago I would have told you hell no, never, we’re done, forget it. But now…I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What’s changed your mind?”

“In a funny way, doing this movie with you.” Piper looked thoughtful. “I’ve been having so much fun with you it’s put other things into perspective. I love everything about the process, you know? Watching the animators work. Meeting legends like Gina and Jeremy. I’m not just one thing, anymore. I’m not just one of The Bellamy Sisters.”

She packed a lot of meaning into that one sentence. “Just” one of The Bellamy Sisters sounded like code for something else, like just another rom-com actor.

He knew exactly whatthatwas all about. “I get that. It’s whyI’m turning myself inside out forConned.I’ve been in the business for so long that I never really considered being anything else until I was turned down for a role I really wanted to play for being, and I quote, too pretty.”

Her eyes lit with amusement. “It’s true, you know. You’re a very pretty guy.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said wryly. “It’s hard to break out of the rom-com box once they put you in there. I love what I do, but I was ready for something different.”

She sighed. “Yeah. Me too. That’s why I wanted this movie so badly. It’s why I hung out for two years waiting for it to get started, and why I’ll put up with just about anything to see it through. I do miss being on stage with Mattie and Della, though. I love the intimate shows with my fans, but it’s not the same. There’s nobody to share the high with after it’s over, you know?”

He didn’t, really. Wrapping up a movie always felt a little anticlimactic, and he wasn’t overly thrilled with watching himself on screen. “I can’t say I’ve ever felt high at the end of a day of shooting, but I understand the idea.”

Her gaze locked on his with palpable intensity, and her face lit up with an inner glow that he found mesmerizing. “There’s this energy from the crowd that lifts you up so high it feels like you’re flying, you know? Like you’re all connected on some kind of cosmic cloud that’s taking you away from everything mundane.”

She lifted her hands and face toward the ceiling and beamed. “It’s practically orgasmic.”

He started at the word orgasmic and nearly choked on his own spit. That one word put a flurry of images in his head that absolutely should not be there. It was all he could do to drag his thoughts back to the conversation.

He caught her watching him and narrowed his eyes at her in mock suspicion to cover whatever she might have seen on hisface. “Are you sure you’re not talking about a drug high here? They smoke a lot of weed at those concerts.”

She laughed and waved her hands in denial. “No. I mean, yes they do sometimes, but no. It’s not a drug high. It’s…well it’s kind of like today, when we were in the middle of things and we started laughing and we justknewit was something special. You felt that, right?”

He loved the tangible joy he saw on her face and the way she expressed it with her whole body. What would it feel like to run his hands over the soft curve of her hips?

No, no, no. Stop thinking about her body. Get your mind out of the damn gutter.

“I thought it was good,” he said in what he hoped was an innocent, agreeable tone. He wasn’t sure it came off though.

He was usually so good at being who he needed to be in every situation, but every time Piper was around, his thoughts scrambled. This girl messed with his head in all sorts of ways.

It was a bad idea to let her help him out. It meant she’d be here for hours, in his house, alone…with him.

Piper’s smile deepened. “Why do I get the feeling you’re having a whole conversation in your head without me?”

He shook himself. “Sorry. I…yeah, distracted. ”

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